Conventional wisdom most often depicts the events of 1989 as the failure of socialism. That powerful narrative has served both to discredit alternatives to the capitalism that triumphed and to bestow upon it an aura of legitimacy, which is based not solely on a reading of recent history but on accompanying assumptions about the natural order — not least human nature. Capitalism, from this perspective, is the normal state of affairs, socialism the deviation from it.

Capitalism, it is said, responds to the nature of “man” — acquisitiveness, competition, egoism, and the insatiable need for more. Socialism stands in the way of initiative, creativity, and the drive for besting one’s neighbors. Going by its nom de guerre, communism, it proposes radical equality in a world of unequals.

Therefore, it can be maintained only by the coercive power of an entrenched elite and a repressive state. Once that force is removed and the rulers lose confidence in their right to rule, communism, naturally, falls, and people’s instinctual drives for material accumulation are set free. Markets win out everywhere, even where democracy does not.